Silence
by redcat512
Summary: The spaces between them have always been full of the unsaid. Words can only confer so much and it's silence that speaks the loudest. Tag to 2x22, Conversations with his dead brother. Sam/Dean if you squint.


**Characters: **Dean, Sam, crossroads demon

**Rating: **T

**Warnings: **language

**Summary:** The spaces between them have always been full of the unsaid. Words can only confer so much and it's silence that speaks the loudest. _Tag to 2x22, Conversations with his dead brother._

**Notes:** Set during the first bit of All Hell Breaks Loose pt 2.

* * *

**Silence**

Sam's dead.

Dean's sitting next to the mattress that holds Sam's cooling body and he's pretty sure he's forgotten how to do anything other than sit here watching for any signs of life.

He is in two states - he feels hysteria and chaos threatening to bubble over and at the same time, he's sinking into stillness, devoid of feeling. The stupidly distracted part of him thinks that this is might be what it feels like to be insane. There's simultaneously too much going on in his head and not enough. It's going to explode or maybe implode, but there's no way it's remaining intact. The two opposing extremes don't cancel each other out because psychology doesn't work the same way mathematics does.

* * *

His mind is crawling with half-thoughts and ideas, and most of them are idiotic or inappropriate. Idiotic is probably all he can handle at the moment, so that's alright. He's wondered whether this means he gets Sam's laptop now, he's thought about how long it will be before Sam's body starts to smell, he's thought about the fact that aside from Bobby, there's really no one left to inform about Sam. He tries to will his mind to just shut up already, but its not happening.

He can't believe it. It's been hours, and he still just can't get his head around the idea.

The right words are in his mind - he's said them aloud a few times to make them real, but it's not helping. _Sammy __doesn't exist any more_. _I'm completely and utterly alone_ _now and forever, until the day I die__. Sam is dead._

It's not registering. He keeps watching from the corner of his eye for the telltale eyelid flicker before Sam sits up and yells _gotcha!_ with that stupid grin on his face, but it hasn't happened yet.

It's absurd - how can Sam be alive one moment, and then _not_ the next? It's incomprehensible; it's inconceivable that this could actually _happen_. To him. To them.

Tragedy is a familiar face in their lives, but never a welcome one. This time, though, the pure magnitude of it is breath-stealingly cruel.

In the small, secretly superstitious corner of his mind he's bewildered because he's always had some sort of half-belief in karma, and this isn't _right_, for it to end like this. He's saved hundreds of lives, and he's already pre-paid for any sins he might have committed by losing his mother and his father – oughtn't that be enough? What could he have possible done (or be planning to do) that is so horrible it requires payment in the form of his one last thing, his _everything_?

The only comfort he could choose to draw from this is that with nothing left to his name, there's nothing more the universe can demand of him.

* * *

He can't bear the thought of letting Sam go. To accept that he is dead would be to accept that he is not coming back, and he's not ready to do that, doesn't think he ever will be ready for _that._

He knows now what his father must have felt, seeing him dying. It's not right, to outlive your son or your baby brother. It goes against the natural order of things. He gets, now, why his father did what he did. He still doesn't agree with it, but he can see where the decision came from.

He's had the thought before, known in the back of his mind that if this ever happened, there's nothing he wouldn't do for Sammy. It's different now that he's actually at this point, actually here. It's not as black and white as he thought it was going to be, but it's still pretty obvious what he's going to do.

He's delaying the decision (the action, really - the decision was made two decades ago when his father said _watch out for Sammy_) because a part of him thinks he can talk himself out of doing something monumentally stupid if only he allows time to come to his senses. He _knows_ it's the wrong decision, the one any person on earth could tell him is wrong; he knows. The wrongness doesn't invalidate the need for it, though, because his only other option is to put a gun in his mouth, and he'll do that only when every other possibility has been exhausted. (He will, he knows that. He's trying to tell himself that it will only be a last resort, but he has the funny feeling it's a lie he's telling just so that he can keep it together a little longer.)

There's no way to talk himself down from it, but maybe if he waits long enough the decision will be taken from him. Maybe Bobby will take matters into his own hand, maybe he'll lock Dean up as he salts and burns Sam's body. He kind of wishes it was that easy, that the decision wasn't his anymore, but he also knows that he will fight it with every thing he's got if that happens, and he'll never forgive Bobby. Bobby probably knows that, and that's probably why he's keeping away - though wouldn't stop him if he knew about the idea that's been with since even before Sam died. Bobby knows Dean would do anything, but that particular option either hasn't occurred to him, or he doesn't honestly believe Dean is that stupid. Dean's kind of defiantly proud of being underestimated in the stupidity department. It won't be the first time Bobby's done that either, which is kind of funny in a sick way.

* * *

He talks to Sam. He talks about everything and nothing at all, but he talks anyway.

For all that he's speaking, he's not saying much. It's not that there isn't anything to say; it's just that he hasn't the slightest idea of how to say it. Words don't seem enough, somehow.

He talks himself hoarse, but he can't seem to stop. When he stops, he knows it will be time.

The words are slowing down now, and he can recognise some of the emotions he's remembering and feeling with each turn. It's anticipation, it's fear, it's a kind of giddy excitement that's making him feel ill. He feels full of something, some crazy mix of emotion that's threatening to bubble right out of him, or maybe just explode him into tiny little pieces. He feels like a bottle of soda that's been shaken to breaking point. He's _at_ breaking point, he can recognise that, and he's afraid of what it is that's going to burst out.

He knows that whatever's coming is not something that's nice. Nothing in his life is nice, and even if he didn't have prior experience and probability to base his assumptions on, he would know by the sick feeling in his gut. His gut has rarely steered him wrong. He's hoping for a first, but he's not holding his breath.

He's speaking in words and phrases now, not paragraphs. His speech is stuttered, broken. He's reverting to his base, grammatically incorrect slurring way of speaking - the language he'd picked up in truck stops and seedy pool lounges. Sam ought to be twisting in his grave, be he's statue-still.

"I'm sorry, Sam." He exhales, finally having exhausted his library of bullshit. He rises from his seat and throws one final glance at Sam. "I failed you. In so many ways, but I failed you most by not being there to protect you when you needed me most. I'm sorry."

* * *

He thought he'd made up his mind completely when he got in the car, but a glance at the passenger side almost undoes him. It's empty, of course, but for a second he swore he saw movement there, out of the corner or his eye.

That thing in his head (or in his stomach, judging by the way that's churning), the idea that he's determined is something violently not nice, is threatening to burst out, and he thinks maybe he can out-drive it. As long as he can get to his destination before it catches up, he's going to be fine.

* * *

"Oh come on! Show your face, you bitch!" He's yelling out into the darkness.

The demon is standing near him. "Easy sugar, you'll wake the neighbours." The twist to her lips is making him sick (sicker) to his stomach, but he knows there's no way he's backing out now.

* * *

"One year. It's a better deal than your dad ever got, what do you say?"

Dean's heart is sinking down into the ground because one year is less than his worst case scenario thought had been. He hasn't the words to respond because he's too busy coming to terms with the fact that he would have accepted the deal even if she'd only offered him one day. One year is nothing compared to ten, but it's a lifetime right now, it's more than he'll have with Sam otherwise.

She's smiling because she already knows his answer. It makes him angry, to know that he's so predictable, so easy to read.

This is it. If he turns away now, he's got nothing. Nothing to hide behind when that giant bubble of whatever it is in his mind bursts, because it's getting very near that point, and it's not going to be anything shiny.

He reaches forward to grab her into a kiss to seal the deal before he can back out.

This is it.

* * *

**end**

Feedback would be nice?


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